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Topic: WMO and combustion variances (Read 7303 times)

As I see it, the reason why we will always see test results that are all over the map is because there is no standard for the fuel.

WMO is a moving target. It's made up of all kinds of oils, additives, solvents and even anti-freeze.The varying concentrations of these components means that every user will have a different base fuel to compare to others.What works for one person may fail miserably for another even though the engines are prepared identically. Why, because the fuels are almost guaranteed to be different (even though they are both WMO).

Here's a chunk of text from a post I did last year when investigating the burning of synthetic oils and why some oils burn better than others.

Just for contrast, here are nominal flash points for various fuels and oils..

I think the chart might be a plus for me. I could be wrong about that also. I get my oil from a local Kwik lube and a few small shops who I would guess use regular motor oil and I would guess their customers use regular motor oil. Now the Kwik Lube also flushes transmissions. When I questioned the owner about his ash content in his WMO furnace it was quite low. So what I hope this means is that the supply of oil I can use will be more suited for substution of fuel for engines than some other WMO might be. I find this hard to believe since in my life nothing has ever worked that way. Guess I will not looked a gift horse in the mouth or what ever that saying is. Mike DD

I was just surfing the net for oil vaporising and came across this on a forum,I thought it might be of some interest.Lots of forums with the topic of wmo, not any good reports so far.

09-17-2009, 10:23 PMThis story is in several threads already so I will try to shorten it. Dole, the Fruit Company tried mixing and burning waste Oil in their Diesel Generator Sets that run the Refer Units on Refrigerated Containers.

A white crusty residue started to plug up the Injectors on their Engines and the expense of repair got above the savings in burning the Waste Motor Oil.

Motor Oil has additives and such that are supposed to inhibit burning and are not in of themselve fuel; they can not be filtered out.

I was just surfing the net for oil vaporising and came across this on a forum,I thought it might be of some interest.Lots of forums with the topic of wmo, not any good reports so far.

09-17-2009, 10:23 PMThis story is in several threads already so I will try to shorten it. Dole, the Fruit Company tried mixing and burning waste Oil in their Diesel Generator Sets that run the Refer Units on Refrigerated Containers.

A white crusty residue started to plug up the Injectors on their Engines and the expense of repair got above the savings in burning the Waste Motor Oil.

Motor Oil has additives and such that are supposed to inhibit burning and are not in of themselve fuel; they can not be filtered out.

Billswan,I did not bother to read any more posts on the subject as when you start looking there are lots of forums with the same old stuff, but just thought that post was interesting as it was a big American company.Interesting about the additives.

it would appear that we can conclude that waste motor oil is likely goingto convert to a significant amount of ash if used as a fuel in a diesel engine, and

we can also conclude that folks such as yourself and Dole pineapple company havingused wmo have experienced wear that was unacceptable in the final analysis.

while this works out to be true for some, it might be varying degree's of acceptable to others depending on a variety of factors.

if the engine is relatively inexpensive, if the oil is something that is of known originsand perhaps of low ash type, if the rebuild costs work out, then it might be possible that using waste motor oil as a fuel works out in the final analysis.

i personally would not burn it in an expensive engine, that was hard to work on, with expensive or hard to get to parts, however i personally would have no issue with burning it in my changfa which is relatively inexpensive both in first cost and in rebuild parts.

if i owned a lister, most especially a original lister, i would not burn waste motor oil in it myself, mainly because i have a certain reverence for the nostalgia of the engine, just like i will not cut hole in the dash of my 55 chevy or alter its body lines in any way. however i would have no such revulsion to chopping the crap outof a fiberglass reproduction 55 chevy body.

on the other hand, if i owned a clone and had access to relatively cheap parts, i would do that math and if it proved to make economic sense i would burn rendered hog fat with abandon, and never look back! All the while knowing i am going to have to rebuild the thing probably in a couple thousand hours.

so bottom line, if i were like you spencer, i would not burn anything but pump diesel in my original lister. and like Dole i would not burn anything but pump dieselin my cat or cummins power gensets either.

perhaps in the end we are talking apples and oranges, both engine types are of the same family (fruits) but there is enough differences at least in base value that might warrant burning alternative fuels.

does that make sense to you now?

i don't think we have been anything other than in agreement at least in part sincethe beginning, it is just a matter of degree.

zinc compound (zddp) seems to have been the predominate additive in motor oilsup until recently with our epa wanting it removed.

zinc when burned turns into a white ash substance, however i can't find where it as used in the zddp compound becomes an abrasive, so maybe there are other constituent compounds that are used as additives?

also it appears that carbon (the predominate element in the black particulate matter)has and affinity or rather zinc has an affinity for carbon in a hot environment.

i am wondering whether most of the additives "maybe" along with the Zinc basedzddp don't deposit on the carbon particles like seeding of a crystal. if this is the case it would then stand to reason that we might rid most of the stuff that gets converted into an abrasive (assuming that there are such compounds, that do getconverted to something abrasive), by means of propane or water/steam injection to keep the cylinder from collecting this stuff?

this topic has certainly got my curiosity up, and i have been doing a lot more reading on these additives and how to get them out of the oil, how to distill oil so that a fuel like fraction could be recovered leaving these other additive compounds behind and other methods such as cognos relates where acid/base treatment followed by activated charcoal or activated clay is used to grab these additives in the processing and stripping of wmo.

some of the methods look very complex, however i am fairly certain that a small scale processor could be made to work, most notably in batch fire mode to derivea clean usable fuel stock from wmo.

this is definitely worth more research in my opinion, if for no other reason but to find out whether or not one could actually do it.

eveningwmo ashforgive me if it has already been dismissed as not the problem/cause. "nix alba", "philosopher's wool" or "white snow" what ever you want to call it burnt zinc?cheers needenginerunnin

Hi needenginerunnin,Nice to hear from a fellow brit. I see from your location you may know a bit about glasshouse manufacturer, as lots of the glasshouses where made in your location.As we live in a area where there used to be small holding and my dad use to also farmed one we had masses of galvanised metal from dismantled glasshouses .Nasty to weld with white fluff, poisonous gas, but free The white ash from fully combusted lubricating oils is just like flour, dry and fine.CheersSpencer